Pure And Simple Insanity
by Sunrise over the Tango Factory
Summary: Lister’s appointment with the ship's counsellor doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped. How can he possibly prove he’s sane when the Doctors the one having a breakdown? One shot


**Disclaimer**: Not mine. I know the law; you can't sue me for copyright if I say I don't own Red Dwarf, which I just did with the disclaimer…so 'HA!'

**A**/**N**: I was bored…again. I've always wanted to write a fic set in series 8, and I was reading the 'talkie toaster' interviews with the characters of Red Dwarf when I suddenly got this idea. I found it hilarious that the one giving therapy was the one who actually needed it…so I sat down and damn near worked my fingers to the bone trying to get it finished, knowing that if I walked away from it, I'd never finish it!

So here it is. Lister's appointment with the counsellor….oh the irony!

Reviews welcomed with open arms, even ones where you tell me _I'm_ the one needing therapy!

* * *

It was safe to say that Dr Lucas McLaren, the Chief Psychiatric Counsellor onboard Red Dwarf, wasn't a full shilling. In fact, it was laughable that he spent his days dealing with the confused, the psychotic, the mentally unstable and the 'nutters' when just last night he was prancing about in front of a mirror wearing nothing but a pair of lacy black suspenders, fish net stockings and a pair of heels.

Lister could tell this guy was a couple of players sort of a Premiership football team the moment he clapped eyes on him. The way he smiled, the way his eyes widened far beyond what was humanly possible. Everything about him, every moment and every gesture screamed 'mad as a hatter'.

"Hello" said the Doctor, showing far too many teeth for Lister's liking "Do take a seat"

Lister did so, but as he tried to move the chair forward he found it bolted to the floor, he gave McLaren a confused look but said nothing.

"My name is Doctor Lucas McLaren" continued the Doctor, an insane grin plastered on his face "And I'm Red Dwarf's Chief Psychiatric Counsellor but you can think of me more as a 'friend', an 'amigo', a good listener, a shoulder to cry on…"

Lister could think of a million and one people's shoulder he'd rather cry on…Attila the Hun and King Herod the name a couple.

"So" chirruped McLaren "Lets get down to business" he shuffled through some papers, mainly for effect "I was talking to your…err…_friend_ Kryten earlier" he peered down at his hand and winced slightly "and we had a little chat and…well, he was under the impression that we'd all died…." he laughed "I mean it's lovely that he thinks that but…well, it's what we in the psychiatric profession call 'a load of rubbish' bec-"

"Not it isn't" said Lister, cutting him off. McLaren blinked in surprise, he leant forward slightly and stared at Lister, "It's true then?" he said. Lister nodded. McLaren froze for a second before smiling once again "Lovely." He said, sitting back and nodding "Lovely. I died….but now I'm alive again."

"Yeah, because the nanobots resurrected the crew when they rebuilt Red Dwarf." explained Lister, hoping to get this ordeal over and done with as soon as possible

The Doctor jumped slightly. Kryten had said something about tiny robots earlier. "Nanobots?" he said, making a note on his clipboard that read 'nutter' before underlining it several times,

"Yeah, tiny little robots."

McLaren nodded, and underlined 'nutter' once more "And…erm…how often do you see these 'tiny little robots' then?"

"You can't see 'em!" replied Lister,

"Ohh…so you're the only one who can see them?" said the Doctor "Lovely, lovely"

"NO, no" said Lister, getting annoyed "No-one can see 'em, they're too small!"

McLaren smiled once again "Of course they are" he said, patronisingly "And theses 'little robots'….do they tell you to do anything?"

"No!" snapped Lister

The Doctor nodded and wrote 'anger issues' next to the word 'nutter' and circled it. "Okay, we'll come back to the robots later…." He flicked through a few papers, but this time he had a purpose. He found Lister's medical records and did a quick read through, nodding continuously "Lovely" he said at long last "Now, you've had a psychiatrist already haven't you?" he smiled "Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's lovely in fact. Because if there were no loony people in the world, I wouldn't have a job…" he laughed, before stopping. He glanced around, looking confused "What was I saying?"

"God only knows" sighed Lister

"Ah, so someone called God is involved now, yes?" his pen at the ready to write some more 'notes'.

"No!" cried Lister, despairingly

"No?"

"NO!"

McLaren circled 'anger issues' once again, and smiled "So, tell me about this 'God' person then…"

Lister groaned and began banging his head on the table, giving McLaren cause to add 'self harms' to his list, "What does this 'God' do exactly?" he asked

"I dunno…" said Lister, "We don't even know if he exists"

"S-o-o-o he's not real then?" asked McLaren

Lister shrugged "No-one knows, some people think he's real, some don't. Simple as."

"So he's a figment of your imagination?" guessed the Doctor

"NO! He's not!"

"What does he look like?" persisted Mad McLaren

Lister groaned once more, he wasn't in the right frame of mind to have a discussion about God's divinity with this psychopathic psychiatrist "I. Don't. Know! No-one knows because no-ones seen him!"

"Is he very small then, like the robots….and that's why we can't see him?" responded McLaren, doodling on his notes

"I DON'T KNOW!" shouted Lister

There was a brief moment of silence as McLaren circled 'anger issues' a couple more times "Okay, lovely. We'll leave that point for later…now, let's talk about your father."

Lister looked up and frowned "Why?"

"My notes say that when you were six you were referred to a child psychologist because you were under the impression that your dead father was…" he paused "down the toilet."

"I was only six!" said Lister "I was a kid!" he groaned, running his fingers through his hair agitatedly "Look, me gran said that my dad had gone away and that he was in the same place as me goldfish…where do goldfish go when they're dead? The toilet! So that's where I thought my dad was!"

McLaren nodded sympathetically and wrote 'morbidly obsessed with death' down. "Lovely." He said "Right. I'm going to do a simple test on you, nothing major. It's just a little test to see how sane you are…." He smiled and held up a piece of card with a big, blue ink blot on it. "Now, tell me what you see"

Lister sighed "An ink blot."

The Doctor frowned and turned the card round, he peered at it for a second or two "Oooookay then" he said, "What about this one?" showing another card

"An ink blot."

McLaren nodded, "and this one?" holding up another one

"An ink blot" replied Lister, hardly giving it a glance

"Lovely, and, erm, what about this one?" said McLaren

"Ink blot."

"You're not even looking" said McLaren, sounding somewhat disgruntled "You're staring at the ceiling!"

Lister pulled a face but said nothing as 'possible Attention Deficit Disorder" was written under the notes. "This next one's just a guess…but is it an ink blot?" he said once McLaren had stopped writing.

The Doctor laughed nervously before adding 'possibly physic' to the page. "We'll, erm, leave that there shall we…before it gets too boring." He chuckled as he shoved the cards into a desk draw.

"It was boring to begin with" Lister replied as he began to suck the dirt out of his nails to pass the time.

The manic grin on McLaren's face shrunk slightly but he carried on "Lovely, lovely! Now let's try some word association - I'll say a word and you say the first word that comes into your head – Okay. Lets try…sane?"

"...insane"

The Doctor made an 'hhhmmmmm' sound and cleared his throat "Disturbed?"

"Mentally!" Lister replied with a mischievous grin on his face,

McLaren nodded, "And what about…women?"

Lister rolled his eyes and plucked a random word from his brain "suspenders"

McLaren physically choked "Who told you!" he shrieked, the colour rising in his cheeks.

"The little birdie sitting on my shoulder that only I can see!" Lister replied with another roll of his eyes,

The Doctor began laughing; it was a cross between a nervous and a relieved laugh, with a little bit of madness thrown in for good measure "That was a joke wasn't it?"

Lister nodded, and glared at him,

"Good" laughed McLaren "Because the last thing I need is an evil little invisible birdie watching me get dressed….my pills were supposed to get rid of such hallucinations…." He ran a hand down his thigh, just to check his suspenders were firmly in place before continuing, "Now, erm….where was I?"

"You're on medication?" asked Lister, thinking about how it explained a lot

McLaren nodded, "Oh yes. I was having Electric Shock Therapy at one point but well, there was some unpleasantness when I decided to go swimming…." He trailed off,

"No offence man" said Lister "But if you're a loony, why the hell are you a psychiatrist on board a mining ship?"

"That's the thing..." replied McLaren, leaning forward as if he were afraid of someone hearing "I don't know how I got here. I don't remember signing up….and" he looked over each shoulder, to check no-one was there "They won't let me leave either….I keep asking them to let me out, but they don't!"

"They can't let you out of the ship, we're in space…you'd die!" said Lister, sitting as far back as his chair would allow

McLaren shook his head "No no no…they won't let me out of my _room_…they lock me in it….saying it's not safe…they only let me out to come here….or to the doctors…" he looked away, and Lister took his opportunity to try and slip away but he wasn't quick enough. McLaren grabbed his arm "And d'you know what else they do…they keep calling me 'doctor'" he smiled and laughed "I'm not a doctor though!"

"You are" said Lister, trying to prise his fingers off his arm "Look, it says so on your name plaque"

McLaren plucked it off the desk, and traced his fingers over the 'Dr.' that was engraved onto it "So I am…well isn't that lovely!"

Lister nodded and tried to run for it, but he found the door locked. This was presumably to keep the dangerous patients from escaping because they were a threat to the rest of the crew, but what if the psychiatrist turned out to be the dangerous one, and Lister was now locked in the room with him!

"You can't leave" explained McLaren casually "I've tried! They bolt it…they bolt everything - the doors, the chairs, the desk - the windows - they even bolt the windows!"

"Erm…yeah" Lister replied hesitantly. "That's so we don't all get sucked into space where our heads explode!"

"We're not _really_ in space you know - it's all a ploy so they can put us on a TV show, like those people who thought they were going into space when they were really on a game show hosted by an evil bloke by the name of….Jimmy Carr!"

"Jimmy Carr is evil?" Lister asked with a raised eyebrow "first sane thing you've said all day!"

"Sane?" said McLaren, twitching slightly "Who's sane? You're not sane! Here, I wrote it on my paper in bright red ink! Look!" he waved the report at Lister "You have problems! B-I-G problems!"

"Well they're microscopic compared to yours!" Lister muttered under his breath,

"D'you think I'm mad?" asked the Doctor suddenly, staring at Lister expectantly

"Yes!"

"Seriously?" he asked again

"Yes!" replied Lister, leaning against the door and sighing

McLaren's bottom lip began to tremble; he sniffed before bursting into tears "Everyone thinks I'm a crackpot!" he wailed, burying his head in his hands

"Well…you are" said Lister, cautiously sitting on the desk and patting him on the shoulder.

McLaren wailed even louder "They're so mean to me…they call me 'loony Lucas!'"

"And how'd you feel about that?" asked Lister, taking the cigarette he'd managed to swipe off one of the prison guards out of his pocket and lighting it.

For the next 3 hours Lister sat and listened as McLaren rambled on about his life, his career, his childhood, his hallucinations, his problems and everything else you're supposed to tell your psychiatrist.

"And that was when I became very depressed because and I'd hide away. Frightened to meet people because I thought they'd hurt me and-"

"I think we'll leave it there for today!" interrupted Lister, standing up and stretching

"Oh, okay" said McLaren "I'll erm…ask them to let you out now. And…erm…thank you for, well….letting me waffle on a bit there, I just needed to get a few things off my chest, but please don't tell anyone about it. It wouldn't look good if the psychiatrist suddenly became the patient!" he laughed,

"Sure thing man" said Lister, hurrying towards the door "no worries!"

"Lovely" smiled McLaren as the door 'swooshed' open "I think we've made good progress today, David! Same time next week?"

Lister nodded whilst secretly thinking 'Not if I can help it!'. He hurried out the door, and was half way down the corridor before McLaren could finalise the appointment. The Doctor then turned to the guards outside the door and smiled "Hello. Had a nice day?"

The pair exchanged worried looks, and muttered something about "loony Lucas" before walking off. McLaren scurried back into the counselling room, and collected together all his notes. He froze when he reached his analysis (if you could really call it that) of Lister's session. The words 'nutter' and 'anger issues' glared back at him. McLaren sighed. Was Lister mad? In the end it came down to which one had spent the best part of 3 hours having a mental break down! Lister was the one who'd sat there, listened and offered guidance. Wasn't that supposed to be McLaren's job? Wasn't that what he was trained to do?

It would be hypocritical of him to write Lister off as 'mad' just because he believed the ship and the crew had been 'rebuilt' by tiny little robots. And who's to judge who's 'sane' or 'insane'?

The Doctor grabbed his pen and the official report he had to fill out to give to the captain, and wrote just one word.

'**Insane!'**


End file.
